


The Right Person

by Ammeh



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Guilt, Light Angst, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2587919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ammeh/pseuds/Ammeh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sycamore struggles with not-entirely-platonic feelings of admiration for Serena. </p><p>(Gameverse. Unresolved-but-mutual Sycamore/Serena, with references that could be interpreted as past Sycamore/Diantha and/or Sycamore/Lysandre if you want to read things that way.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Person

**Author's Note:**

> This was a response to a very simple kinkmeme prompt (Sycamore/Serena with emphasis on age difference) that has been languishing half-forgotten on my hard drive for about a year now--I started it right after the games came out, posted the first part of it on the pokeanon kink meme, and then it sort of died because I was worried my recollection of in-game events was imperfect and was stuck on the post-game get-together I wanted to write. I fixed the small inaccuracies I found after a replay but unfortunately never got unstuck on the epilogue. The eminent Hoenn remakes made me remember it and re-evaluate whether the epilogue was actually necessary. I've decided to go with no.
> 
> I was picturing ages of 16-17 and 33-36 while writing this, but much like the references to Diantha and Lysandre, feel free to imagine whatever you want.

1.   Vaniville

 

The results of the fairy type matchup testing are almost ready to publish.

He’ll miss it, actually. Type matchups are simple and quantifiable—this does more damage, this does less. Mega Evolution continues to elude him because it’s _subjective_. Abstract. The stones, the key, he can see. Analyze. (Well, to a limited extent—the keys are rare enough that no one will let him hack off a sample to run tests on.) But the emotions—how can he measure that? It’s hard to hypothesize what might make _feelings_ necessary without venturing into the realm of armchair philosophy. He’s got some theories, but nothing that he could present in a paper or conference. Rowan would laugh him out of the room.

When he first entered this field he used to scoff at the tradition of sending unpaid, unofficial adolescent research assistants out on an epic journey with a Pokémon and a data-recording device. Surely there were more efficient ways to do things. He tried it, and then he hired them full-time in the lab afterwards, and that way was really much more effectual.

But there’s a certain charm to the relationship, he’s realized. It’s not just about free publication material, it’s about…enabling friendship and growth. Inspiring a love for, and an understanding of, Pokémon. Planting the seeds for the next generation’s great discoveries. It’s a sentiment his 20-year-old self probably would have squirmed at the corniness of and his current self thinks is _fantastic_.

And it seemed the _perfect_ thing to try when he found himself stuck on the mystery of Mega Evolution. He can’t stick in _feelings_ as an experimental parameter and run tests. He needed someone to go _experience_ it. Maybe if he can cross-reference enough experiences he’ll see the underlying thread. Maybe he just needs to send the right person and they’ll make some breakthrough that will help him find the next step.

So he picks a promising candidate, and then he picks three more because why not, and then he adds on a fifth at the last minute because he feels sorry for taking away the boy who could have been her friend before she even met him.

Traditionally he’d deliver the Pokémon in person, but tradition is rather inconvenient. He meets the two who live closest and delegates ( _Rowan would have called it laziness and he's not sure he disagrees_ ), and then he just ( _waits_ ) gets back to his research.

\--

2\. Sycamore Labs (Bug badge)

 

He doesn’t want to play favorites. He picked _five_ children, not one.

He doesn’t want to play favorites, and yet he finds himself challenging her instead of drawing straws like he’d meant to, pulling out a case intended for other purposes and offering her a second rare Pokémon. (He offers them to the other two, of course, but he wouldn’t have offered in the first place if it weren’t for her.)

He tells himself it’s because she got here first, because she joined up last, because she must be lost and lonely in a whole new region setting out from the one person who was familiar.

It’s not because the instant he saw her he wanted to battle, wanted to see how that spark in her eye would come out in a match. It’s because he can see potential (and she has it— _oh_ , does she have it), and not because he wanted to see the look of joy on her face. It’s because she has what it takes to unlock the secrets of Mega Evolution, _not_ because he’s always had a weakness for pretty girls, and he knows she has what it takes because he is _excellent at reading people,_ not because her smile twists an old familiar knot in his stomach ( _Diantha_ ).

He finds himself watching the hem of her skirt swaying above her thigh-high stockings as she leaves, and he has to remind himself of his age.

\--

3\. Shalour (Cliff badge)

 

He forgets it, for a while. It’s exciting to track their progress across Kalos, and easy to forget how she stood out when he’s wrapped up in his lab and all five of them are half the region away. She’s getting badges, as he expected, but it hardly makes her _remarkable_. It’s easy not to treat her as special when ‘special’ was just a promise in her eyes, and not anything she’s done yet.

He even calls her last about the Mega Evolution guru, and does his best not to _assume_ she’ll be the one to master it. Calem has potential too. They _all_ have the glow of potential, but she shone with it like a beacon and it’s hard not to get blinded.

He calls her last, and realizes he’s forgotten quite how fetching she was. (And ‘fetching’ is the wrong word—he must mean some other word, one that’s appropriate for a man his age to call a girl hers. ‘Striking,’ perhaps. He’d forgotten just how striking she was.) He tries to ignore it, but part of what makes her so intriguing is that shine of _promise_ that he can’t ignore, even over the holo-caster.

He hangs up and realizes that in the span of the conversation he’s convinced himself she’ll be the one to master it.  

And then she _does_ , and he can call it ‘intuition’ instead of ‘favoritism,’ and everything is right with the world except that he still doesn’t know what to do with the part of himself that wanted to call her ‘fetching.’

\--

4\. Coumarine (Rumble badge)

 

He barely notices, with Diantha there. Diantha’s always been a beacon of her own and he feels _natural_ with her around, relaxed and familiar. It’s easy not to notice when he’s absorbed in thought about Mega Evolution, when Diantha says something that sends his mind spinning with new hypotheses.

He hands her the HM and almost doesn’t notice the brightness of her smile, the way her hair falls over her forehead.

Almost.

\--

5\. Lumiose (Plant badge)

 

Lumiose suits her.

Her second time in the city and already it’s eating out of the palm of her hand, the locals fawning over her like starry-eyed tourists even as she orders a _café_ with a hint of an accent.

He likes a woman whom Lumiose suits, and this would be much easier if he could call her a woman.

\--

6\. Lumiose (Voltage badge)

 

It’s simpler to deal with her with Lysandre there, but that’s because Lysandre sometimes doesn’t converse so much as monologue. ( _He’s certainly been fixated on the old myths lately_.)

It strikes him as odd for a moment—Lysandre usually waits until at least the third meeting before subjecting you to his latest theory—but he dismisses it. Lysandre’s always been a bit abrupt and intense. Doesn’t abide small talk. It’s one of the things Sycamore finds so refreshing about him.

Months later, he’ll curse himself for not paying attention to the signs.

\--

7\. Lumiose (Fairy Badge)

 

She’s sitting outside the café across from his lab when he steps out for lunch, legs crossed demurely in those perpetual, damnable thigh-high stockings, sipping a cappuccino and feeding a positively _festooned_ poképuff to a Meowstic sitting next to her chair. Her shirt and skirt are clearly from the Lumiose boutique, and he’s impressed—both at her fashion ( _in Sinnoh they used to call him a dandy for sparing time to care about_ clothes _while getting a doctorate, but Kalos understands_ ) and at the skill she must have in battle to have afforded it.

“Professor!” she exclaims, perking up, gesturing for him to sit at her table—and he finds himself doing so even though he hadn’t been planning to eat here. She shows him her Pokédex and her latest badge and laments that the two Pokémon he gave her are a bit _big_ now to bring out on the crowded sidewalk.

“So what brings you back here?” he asks, caught up in her ( _youthful_ ) enthusiasm and more enamour— _impressed_ with her than ever. He’s not sure why she’d stop back here between Laverre and Dendemille— _he’s_ always been drawn back to the pulse of Lumiose like a siren but he knows it’s not an affliction that everyone shares. Certainly not young travelling trainers, high on new battles and fresh sights.

She wrinkles her nose. “I needed a coat.”

“Ah.” He chuckles sympathetically. “My apologies.”

“And I’m attempting to try the specialty of every café in Lumiose,” she adds with a grin, and he’s startled because that’s something _he_ attempted, seven years ago when he moved to the city, and gave up halfway through.

He offers to join her in it, and she’s eagerly accepted before he thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have. It’s so hard to figure out what he would have done if she weren’t…well… _her_. (Would he have offered to join Calem? He can’t say, because he can’t imagine Calem on a mission to sample every café in Lumiose in the first place. But he shouldn’t think of Calem, because it brings thoughts of Calem’s father, which reminds him that she’s the same age as Calem and he’s only a few years younger than Calem’s father, which means he’s old enough to be _her_ father.)

He pays for her drink along with his lunch and then wonders if that was appropriate for a moment, before cursing the guilty conscience that’s making him over-analyze every decision, because _of course it was_ —he’s a working adult and she’s a teenager who just had to drop half her savings on _keeping warm_. He would have done it for any of them.

His eyes absently trace her departing silhouette after they part ways in front of his lab, and he pauses to bang his forehead against the door as he closes it behind him.

\--

8\. Anistar (Psychic Badge)

 

He shouldn’t be playing favorites. There’s really no question that he is, at this point. But he can’t _stop._ She’s taking the world by storm and saving it in the meantime and somehow managing to fill her Pokédex in leaps and bounds in whatever time’s left in between. He’s impressed with all five of them, but she _sparkles_ , somehow. Even the others look at her with awe. But still, the fact that he’d suggested to her—and to none of the others—that she had what it takes to catch a legendary Pokémon isn’t excused by the fact that she’d actually ended up _doing so_ —or is it? He _is_ excellent at reading people ( _or so he’d thought last week—will all his rights added together ever be enough to excuse that one misjudgment?_ ), and it seems just as wrong to _lie_ about what he sees in them. They all have potential, and he’s proud of all of them. They can’t all be stars racing for unseen heights.

He shouldn’t be playing favorites. But he calls her up and asks her to meet him in Couriway, and he spends the next ten minutes staring moodily at the sycamore leaf etched on his custom holo-caster ( _Lysandre_ ) instead of dialing up the others like he’d maybe-never-actually-intended to.

He finds himself swapping out his pokéballs before he leaves to get on the train, and it’s not until that point that he realizes why he felt the need to meet her in person. And surely that’s all there it to it. It’s certainly not that the holo-caster image washes out the color of her skin, doesn’t quite transmit the delicate twists of her mouth and the determined fire in her eyes. It’s not that using the holo-caster is still a little painful, and he’s worried his voice might break if he had to use it to thank her for what she’s done. Still, he leaves it in a desk drawer and picks up a new one (cheap, plastic, _generic_ ) on his way to the station. He calls up the others from the train to thank them ( _it’s still a little raw_ ), and wonders why he felt the need to battle her. Or maybe he should wonder why he’s never felt the need to battle any of the others.

\--

9\. Couriway (Psychic badge)

 

He always has to check for the message whenever he comes to Couriway. Someday they’ll redo the station, he knows, but for now it’s still there. He reads it, and thinks, as always ( _it’s more bittersweet than usual_ ), and feels a little better by the end of it.  

He sets up a treasure hunt for her while he waits. (He hopes she’ll find the message while she looks. He’s not sure why _._ ) It’s the sort of random, silly thing that’s always amused him, but maybe he’s also trying to remind himself that she’s a _child_.

It almost works, right until she walks up.

She takes him down with the force of a tidal wave, burning brighter than ever. ( _He wonders if he should tell Diantha yet._ ) He tells her about the treasure hunt—it’s not like he’s giving her a _gift_ if he hid something for the first comer and just happens to tip her off—and turns to leave.

“You’re leaving already?” she asks, voice a little plaintive. He turns to see her looking up at him through her lashes, fidgeting with the strap of her bag. She glances down nervously when he meets her eyes, and raises a hand to touch her hair, a flush high on her cheeks.

He knows that look, and if she were five—maybe even two—years older, he’d be turning on the charm and inviting her to dinner at the hotel, with the distinct possibility of renting a room afterwards.

He doesn’t let himself acknowledge it.

\--

10\. Lumiose Station (Championship)

 

The next time he sees her she’s beaten the Champion. He’s pulled out all the stops to give them the recognition they deserve, and while he’s been second-guessing himself for months with regards to her this feels completely _right_.

When it comes time to give her the TMV pass, though, he remembers the _look_ on her face in Couriway and he’s completely lost on what to do. Now he has to worry about her misinterpreting something even if he _does_ treat her exactly like the others (and he doesn’t, he knows he doesn’t, but he _tries_ ).

He asks her mother to tell her to meet him. He used to delegate out of convenience and now it feels so _deliberate_. A layer of separation, a way to avoid treating her as special, a way to avoid _her_.

Because _nothing can happen_. He’s twice her age and while that isn’t wrong by itself it means she’s a _teenager._ It’s not that he thinks she’s too young—his first experience was at 14 and he hardly thinks himself traumatized for it (and oh god that was _before she was born_ )—but she should have someone her own age. Someone with fresh eyes who can discover love with her…not someone with a string of one-year relationships, and two-week stands with beautiful acquaintances. ( _Sex with strangers has always seemed so crass, but a whirlwind romance with a lovely tourist has a certain magical quality, especially in a city like Lumiose.)_ Not someone whose heart’s been broken three times already ( _four now, he realizes, though he hadn’t thought of it that way before),_ who’s probably broken two or three times that many.

It’s not that he doesn’t think he’s relationship material, but she’s too young to know what she’s getting into. She deserves a relationship where she can hold hands in public and kiss goodbye on street corners. Not…secrecy and scandal and a man who’s never managed to make it work before, not even when he really wanted to.

He acts like he’s in a hurry—it’s served him well before—and manages to leave without incident ( _except that that hopeful look in her eyes hits him right in the gut.)_

With any luck, she’ll get over it soon.

With any luck, he will.

_\--_

11\. Anistar (Championship)

 

He pours himself into his work—they’ve made some breakthroughs just from examining the wreckage in Geosenge ( _still haven’t found his body_ ). He’s turning over a piece of the _whatever-it-was_ in a clean white room ( _he prefers to think in his office, surrounded by color and art and music_ ) when suddenly it hits him. The sundial.

He’s so excited that he doesn’t even _think_ about it. When he gives Calem a TMV pass he asks him to pass on a message because it’s _convenient,_ not for the sake of some awkward dance of not-misleading-her.

When he sees her he’s exuberant and lighthearted and talking to her feels _normal_ again. He does notice the flattering fit of her coat, the way the light through the sundial casts a glow on her skin, but he notices them like he might notice on another woman—just absent admiration as he carries on a conversation, not a guilty nagging in the back of his skull.

He’s not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one.  

\--

12\. Lumiose (Championship)

 

She walks into the lab a week later, offering an unknown mega-stone up for examination. She’s full of questions as he pores over it, but after the stone is tucked back in her bag she hesitates at the edge of his desk, still radiating unfinished business.

“Do you have a few hours?” she asks. “We have a lot of cafés to try.” Her bright tone belies her obvious nervousness, her arms tense at her sides with her fists balled up in her skirt.

He thought she’d forgotten.

He shouldn’t be excited that she hadn’t.

He should say no, sorry, he may have been overly optimistic when he suggested he’d have time to do this with her. (It would be a lie—he subscribes to the common Lumiose philosophy that life always has a couple hours to spare for a café break, but she doesn’t know that _._ )

“Where would you like to start?”

The words are out of his mouth before he realizes it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is it for now. The last bit was supposed to be the lead-in into a sequence covering their interactions at various cafes and her awkwardly trying to court him (and eventually succeeding), but it never materialized beyond a few unfinished snippets. I'm hopeful that playing the new games will give me the spark to finish that part, but for now I've decided that this is enough to stand on its own.
> 
> (Regarding the treasure hunt bit--when I played I didn't find the message and I thought that the prism scale in the waterfall was the treasure Sycamore was talking about, and the abnormally high number of hidden junk items around town were to make it hard to just beeline to the scale with the itemfinder. When I found out about the message I still found the concept of Sycamore hiding items around town for the PC to find too adorable to nix, and so my headcanon is that he hid them to make the hunt for the message more exciting? Sorry if that was confusing.)


End file.
